Big Brother's Watching

Traders Magazine, October, 2006 by Hillary Jackson

Get with it. That was the message for a gathering of mutual fund board executives this summer from a commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who stressed that part of their job included understanding issues important to the equity trading desks they oversee. SEC Commissioner Annette L.

Nazareth encouraged these board directors to get a better handle on issues like best execution and the factors that impact trading costs. "While it is unlikely most of you will become technical experts," Nazareth said, "you can certainly ask probing questions of your fund managers, and they in turn [of] their executing brokers, about the reasons for selecting certain trading opportunities and the advantages of one or another market for types of securities." Nazareth, no...